Cyber crime has been increasing in Uttar Pradesh, however, the State government seems to have no plan to control it. The number of people arrested on the charges of cyber fraud in 2014 has increased by 103.2 percent comparing to 2013.

A news report published in Times of India (TOI) confirmed that 1,223 computer professionals and hackers were arrested across the state under cyber crime act in 2014, which was more than 103.2% in comparison to 2013. A total of 602 people were arrested in 2013.

TOI published a data ofNational Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) showed that majority of the people were between 18 to 45 years old. Among them, 15 employees or disgruntled employees and 62 business competitors were also held by police. The statistics revealed that 2013 witnessed a 122.5% jump in cyber offences over 2012.

The NCRB revealed that UP had 18.1% share of cases reported under cyber crime during 2014. Moreover, majority of 898 cases lodged across the state under Section 66 A of IT Act were computer related offences. A total of 1,042 cases were lodged under Sections 66 A to 66 E.

Similarly, it also revealed that 36 cases (under Section 65) were registered on charges of tampering computer source documents. Similarly, 371 cases were reported under Section 67 and 67 A to C on the charges of publication or transmission of obscene/sexually explicit material.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United
States announced on August 11 fraud charges against 32 people, among them two
are Ukrainian men, after finding their involvement in an alleged international
hacking and insider trading ring.

The SEC issued a press release informing that these people
took part in a scheme to profit from stolen nonpublic information about
corporate earnings announcements.

“Those charged include two Ukrainian men who allegedly
hacked into newswire services to obtain the information and 30 other defendants
in and outside the U.S. who allegedly traded on it, generating more than $100
million in illegal profits,” the press release read.

According to the press statement, the complaint against the
people was filed under seal on August 10 in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J.

The crooks used proxy servers to mask their identities and
by posing as newswire service employees and customers. The two allegedly recruited traders with a
video showcasing their ability to steal the earnings information before its
public release.

“The complaint charges that in return for the information,
the traders sometimes paid the hackers a share of their profits, even going so
far as to give the hackers access to their brokerage accounts to monitor the
trading and ensure that they received the appropriate percentage of the
profits,” the statement read.

Similarly, it also charges that the traders sought to
conceal their illicit activity by establishing multiple accounts in a variety
of names, funneling money to the hackers as supposed payments for construction
and building equipment, and trading in products such as contracts for
difference (CFDs).

“This international scheme is unprecedented in terms of the
scope of the hacking, the number of traders, the number of securities traded
and profits generated,” Mary Jo White, Chairperson of the SEC, said in the
press release.

“These hackers and
traders are charged with reaping more than $100 million in illicit profits by
stealing nonpublic information and trading based on that information. That
deception ends today as we have exposed their fraudulent scheme and frozen
their assets,” she added.

The SEC charged that Ivan Turchynov and Oleksandr Ieremenko
created a secret web-based location to transmit the stolen data to traders in
Russia, Ukraine, Malta, Cyprus, France, and three U.S. states, Georgia, New
York, and Pennsylvania.

“This cyber hacking scheme is one of the most intricate and
sophisticated trading rings that we have ever seen, spanning the globe and
involving dozens of individuals and entities,” said Andrew Ceresney, Director
of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
“Our use of innovative analytical tools to find suspicious trading
patterns and expose misconduct demonstrates that no trading scheme is beyond
our ability to unwind.”

Within days of its CEO Rahul Yadav’s exit from the company, the website of Housing.com has been hacked.

The homepage of the website shows a cryptic message, which seems as a call for its co-founder.

The defaced Housing.com home page showed the message: “Yes! We will solve the real estate, but 10X better with The Chief Architect.” The Chief architect here, refers to Yadav who was sacked by the Board of Directors, blaming him for his unfavourable behaviour.

(pc- google images)

The page of the website was filled with the following messages.

Yadav has however denied that he by any means is behind the hacking incident. He denied his involvement on his facebook page by saying that, “I would have DESIGNED it better. ‪#‎NotInvolved ‪#‎LoveYouTechTeam".

J Prasanna, director, Cyber Security and Privacy Foundation, a non-profit organization in Bangalore said that, Housing should get a thorough technical assessment of the website. He added that in a live portal, there are more chances of compromising a lot of data of the consumers.

"In this case, the hackers decided to publish the hacking. What if the hackers don't publish this and the data is sold to competitors or rogue elements? These guys did for publicity, but not everyone would do it for fun.", Time of India quoted Prasanna as saying.

Housing.com’s board released announced Yadav’s release on the 1st of July. The board released a statement that day indicating his ouster from the online realty company.

The press release said, “The board believes his behaviour is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company, known for its innovative approach to product development, market expansion and brand building.” Yadav, the release said, would “no longer be an employee of Housing and be associated with the company in any manner, going forward”.

An unidentified group of hackers stole 400 GB worth of confidential data from the Hacking Team, which provides effective, easy-to-use offensive technology to the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities.

According to report published on Welivesecurity, the attack started late night on July 6. It is said that the weak passwords might be reason behind the leak.

“Passwords are also contained in the leaked documents, including the login for the company’s official Twitter account which was used by the attackers to publish confidential information. The attackers posted private emails from company employees to Twitter, as well as a link from where anybody can download the 400GB file,” the report read.

The company’s official came to know about the attack only on the next morning.

Christian Pozzi, a security engineer, on July 7 confirmed by stating that, “We are awake. The people responsible for this will be arrested. We are working with the police at the moment.”

The researchers have claimed that as the company, which develops surveillance tools, sells such tools to various organizations across the world and that might be the reason behind the hacking.

J. Prasanna, Founder of Cyber Security & Privacy Foundation, said the Hacking team has been accused of selling software to hack into people for last few years. They seem to have supplied to countries where there are dictatorship regime (where people are targeted by government).

“Maybe an activist group would have hacked into the servers of hacking team,” opined Prasanna.

“Companies can make such tools, but it should be sold responsibly to democratic regime, such activity of monitoring should be subject after a court warrant. It should never be sold to countries which does human rights violations,” he added.

He added that there was always weak element in security.

“There may have a zero day vulnerabilities which hackers could have used to exploit,” he said.

Regarding about the impact of the attack, Prasanna said that many countries or governments who dealt and bought this software would get exposed.

“Today, many governments and companies are hungry for information on people/corporations/governments. So they hire hackers or software that does hacking,” Prasanna concluded.

Local news organizations reports that BJP Junagadh unit's website (bjpjunagadh.org) was hacked and defaced by some unknown hackers.

The hackers who defaced the website posted comments against BJP and RSS. The defacement also contains several images of people burning and standing on the Indian tricolor.

We have referred some defacement-mirror websites, the hack appears to have taken place in February. It is unclear whether these local reports referring this incident or the website got defaced again today.

According to the defacement-mirror record(hxxp://dark-h.org/deface/id/12604), this website was defaced by a Pakistani hacker going by handle "Sniper haxXx" who is responsible for many Indian websites' hacks.